Due to their design and capabilities, remote viewing devices, and, in particular, borescopes, are often used to search for and inspect defects that may be hidden within difficult to access spaces. For example, it is known to use a remote viewing device to inspect the many heat exchange tubes within a steam generator of a nuclear power plant, or to inspect numerous individual portions of aircraft engines.
When properly performed, inspection processes such as these can entail many hours of solitary effort, and, in turn, can cause the inspector to become bored or inattentive and thus to miss important details revealed during the inspection process. A potential solution to this problem is to provide non-distracting entertainment (e.g., broadcast radio) to an inspector. Unfortunately, remote viewing devices such as borescopes are often used in environments in which it is impossible or logistically impractical to obtain a broadcast radio signal. For example, nuclear power plants are generally surrounded by a containment structure that can interfere with radio reception inside the containment structure. Moreover, places in which airplanes are stored can be quite loud, even loud enough to drown out a broadcast radio signal.
Additionally, those who operate remote viewing devices presently use either a tape recorder and/or a paper and a writing utensil not only to memorialize observations they make during the inspection process but also to receive various instructions related to the inspection process (e.g., how to use the remote viewing device and or some of its features, what potions of an object they are to inspect, etc.). This is not ideal because it requires the inspector to discontinue the inspection process in order to use his hands to obtain or to provide the necessary information. That, in turn, lengthens the duration of the process and, perhaps more significantly, could cause the inspector to forget at what stage he or she was within the overall inspection process, leading to errors.
Thus, there is a need for a remote viewing device that is adapted to provide entertainment and information to, and/or to memorialize observations made by, a user thereof in a manner that causes little to no disruption to the inspection process and that does not inhibit or otherwise negatively affect the usage, operation and functioning of the remote viewing device.